Numerical Study of the Spin-1 Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Chain with a Spin-1/2 Impurity

Abstract

Low-lying excited states as well as the ground state of the spin-1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain with a spin-1/2 impurity are studied by means of a method of numerical diagonalization. The isotropic nearest-neighbor exchange coupling plus the uniaxial single-ion-type anisotropy energy is assumed for the host-system Hamiltonian. The energy differences between the ground state and the low-lying excited states, which appear in the Haldane gap, are estimated in the thermodynamic limit. The results are used to analyze the electron-spin-resonance experimental data on Ni(C$_2$H$_8$N$_2$)$_2$NO$_2$(ClO$_4$), abbreviated NENP, containing a small amount of spin-1/2 Cu$^{2+}$ impurities. It is found that in this system, the impurity-host $\bigl($Cu$^{2+}$-Ni$^{2+}$$\bigr)$ coupling is ferromagnetic and its magnitude is about 5$\,$\% of the magnitude of the host-host $\bigl($Ni$^{2+}$-Ni$^{2+}$$\bigr)$ coupling.